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Issue: Sex + Gender

Sophie Night To Celebrate Common Sense. Our ‘Cuss-titutional Crisis.’ Euphemism Dies at Ceuta? Politico ‘Retraumatized’ by Fauci Hearing. Noonan: He ‘Unmasked’ Himself. Cookin’ with RFK Jr. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

Common sense is having a moment.

Sophie Cunningham of the Indiana Fever, a WNBA team, is being recognized for her commonsense approach to men in women’s sports. Make way for Sophie Night:

“Sophie Night” is coming to Democratic strongholds this weekend.

Upcoming WNBA games in Portland, Oregon, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, will feature rallies outside the arenas in support of Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham — the fan-favorite teammate of Caitlin Clark who has spoken out in defense of women’s sports.

A rally in Portland will be led by Washington-based activist Amy Sousa, who helped organize the Cunningham rally outside Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena on Tuesday. A second rally in Minneapolis will be led by XX-XY Athletics founder and former U.S. gymnastics national champion Jennifer Sey.

Continuing with the commonsense theme, The Free Press celebrates—well—”Sophie Cunningham’s Common Sense.” TFP’s Kat Rosenfield begins:

In the end,” the omniscient narrator of 1984 explains, “the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it.”

The gist of the story is that Cunningham (and other good women) are well on the way to shattering the “truth” that the men who claim to be women have the right to compete in sports. Apparently, the WNBA is the last to get the message, as an incident this week made all too obvious:

The Women’s National Basketball Association may claim to put women first, but the league sure has a funny way of showing it.  

When its leaders aren’t giving prodigy Caitlin Clark the cold shoulder or turning a blind eye to her on-court mistreatment, they’re telling young female fans to go dribble a football if they insist that women’s sports should be free of male intrusion.

That’s what happened Wednesday when Celeste Keaton, co-owner of the Seattle Storm, publicly exploded at two teen girls for wearing T-shirts reading XX-XY — an implicit message that sports should be separated by sex.

Keaton allegedly called the pair “f–king insane” for their quiet protest at a game between the Storm and the Indiana Fever.

That’s right: This wealthy, influential woman saw two girls seated courtside respectfully advocating to keep women’s sports female — at a women’s basketball game featuring high-profile female stars, no less — and thought to herself, “I should berate them for their bigotry.”

Ms. Must interrupts today’s gleanings to bring you (and Ms. Keaton) a special cultural message: Politics is getting more vulgar, with two presidents leading the way on curse word counts, according to a new study publicized in the New York Post:

Some might call it a cuss-titutional crisis.

Politics is rapidly becoming more profane, with a staggering 87% of swear words from presidents dating back to 1919 coming from commanders in chief within the past 10 years, according to a shocking finding.

President Trump and his predecessor Joe Biden were responsible for 538 profane words— 78% of presidential cuss words used out of the 692 documented since Woodrow Wilson, a researcher in Wales found.

The scenes of thousands of Moroccan migrants storming Ceuta, a North African enclave governed by Spain since the seventeenth century, remind us of our own border during the Biden years. “The invasion of Ceuta must be the final nail in the coffin of globalism,” is Brendan O’Neill’s Spiked Online headline. “The storming of the Spanish enclave by 50,000 foreigners is a testament to the nihilistic cowardice of Europe’s elites,” O’Neill argues. He begins:

Can we say ‘invasion’ now? What other word is there for the rough intrusion of tens of thousands of young men into the sovereign territory of a foreign nation? Surely not even the sappiest leftist in his tattered keffiyeh and ‘Refugees Welcome’ t-shirt would describe the thuggish gatecrashing of an independent nation as ‘asylum seeking’? That might be the one and only upside to the extraordinary events in Ceuta yesterday: the death, at last, of euphemism. The impossibility of any longer dressing up the West’s suicidal abandonment of its borders as ‘kindness’.

“Islamic Invasion of Spain Renewed” is the headline on a Powerline post that recalls Islam’s eighth-century invasion of Spain. Muslims ruled parts of Spain until they finally were at last driven out in 1492. Georgia Meloni, Italy’s Prime Minister, is calling for Spain to be suspended from the EU’s visa-free Schengen travel zone to protect Italy from a similar invasion. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, famously lenient on border policy, has arrived at Ceuta, belatedly attempting to control the border. Babylon Bee: “Spain Turns to Experienced Border Czar Kamala Harris for Help with Migrant Invasion.”

The U.S. could tell Spain that dealing with the ramifications of open borders after the fact threatens to consume the entirety of political life. A Compact magazine story suggests that immigration has created a two-tiered justice system. President Trump’s latest initiative is to deal with illegal aliens who imperil our highways because they can’t read highway signs in English. Dubbed “Freedom Haulers,” the initiative aims at employing U.S. military veterans as truck drivers, replacing the tens of thousands of immigrant drivers who lost their licenses during the administration’s immigration crackdown.

The Iran War is at a crossroads, according to historian of pivotal battles Victor Davis Hanson. VDH’s subtitle: “Iran’s rulers are not playing to win the war today—they are playing to survive long enough to fight another one tomorrow.” Writing in the Washington Post, Marc Thiessen makes similar points, contending that President Trump’s strategy has worked but criticizing Vice President Vance:

Like Lucy and the football, Trump keeps getting told that this time the Iranians are finally ready to make a deal — only to be set up for failure yet again. Indeed, by elevating a deal as the definition of victory, Vance has given Iran a veto over America’s ability to declare victory. All it has to do is refuse to agree — which it is doing.

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal suggests that President Trump should pay more attention to Iran’s nefarious allies:

Support from Beijing and Moscow “may play a decisive role in determining whether the current supreme leader is the last,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies’s Bradley Bowman Elaine Dezenski and Retired Rear Admiral  Montgomery write. “The United States is not—and must not be—neutral on such a question.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. has announced that Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups have agreed to a plan that, if followed, would see the groups disarm and lose power in the Gaza Strip if Israel withdraws from the enclave.

Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Senate Committee hearing non-testimony was the hot topic this week. Although Fauci took the Fifth 111 times, he nevertheless “unmasked himself,” according to Peggy Noonan. Here’s the damning subtitle of her column: 

His diaries make clear that he saw the pandemic less as a historic emergency than a media opportunity.

Left-leaning Politico, on the other hand, was “retraumatized” at seeing Dr. Fauci subjected to the indignity of questions from wicked Republicans.

Ace reporter Catherine Herridge, who was too good for pre-Bari CBS, writes on X that the Fauci pardon may not be bulletproof.

Speaking of CBS, Ms. Must keeps forgetting to note that Ross Douthit is leaving the New York Times to join “60 Minutes.” There are other new hires at “60 Minutes,” and Poynter wonders if they can meet the challenge. Gosh, imagine trying to live up to the giant legacy of Scott Pelley!

Move Over, Martha Stewart. Our versatile Secretary of Health and Human Services RFK Jr. is launching a cooking show. It will feature healthy recipes for under $5. Sign me up:

Can healthy eating really cost less than a drive-thru run?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is betting it can with a new government-backed cooking show aimed at proving nutritious meals don’t have to break the bank.

The new program, “The Real Food Show,” makes “healthy, affordable cooking simple and accessible for every American,” according to the Health and Human Services website.

In addition to Kennedy, “The Real Food Show” features a lineup of “incredible special guest” cooks.

The show will be available on YouTube and the HHS website.

In “95 Days and Counting,” Byron York looks to the midterms. The GOP has numerous impediments:

The only Republican upside, and it is a significant one, is that many Democrats seem to have gone completely insane. The rise of the Democratic Socialists of America inside the party — an unwelcome event that has deeply distressed many mainstream Democrats — is an opportunity for GOP candidates to portray the entire Democratic Party as nuts. Worse than nuts — dangerous.

Two Terrorist Attacks on American Soil. Supreme Leader Found! Strassel on Hormuz. Tish James’ Hill to Die On: Mutilating Kids. And More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

Well, today is Friday 13th but the terrible luck came yesterday in two separate Islamic terrorist attacks on American soil.

The attack at Virginia’s Old Dominion University and came under the increasingly common rubric of crimes-committed-by-people-who-ought-to-have-been-behind-bars:

The FBI says it’s investigating a fatal Virginia university shooting as terrorism after a gunman, who served several years in prison for trying to support ISIS, killed one and injured two others on Thursday. 

The suspect was identified as 36-year-old Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a former Virginia National Guardsman who had pleaded guilty in October 2016 to attempting to provide material support to the terror group ISIS, Dominique Evans, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Norfolk Office, said during a news conference Thursday night. Jalloh was killed following the shooting at Old Dominion University, authorities said.

The shooter walked into a class at Constant Hall, which is part of the College of Business at Old Dominion, and asked if it was an ROTC class, a law enforcement source told CBS News. When someone responded that it was, the shooter opened fire, fatally injuring the class instructor, who was a retired Army officer.

Jalloh was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2017 but was released early—right before Christmas in 2024. It didn’t take Jalloh long to attack. Who is responsible for his release? Why? A naturalized citizen, Jalloh could have been denaturalized and deported. He wasn’t. It’s all infuriating. The ROTC instructor killed has been identified as Lt. Col. Brandon Shah. Kudos to the ROTC students who subdued and killed the attacker. How Nuts Can You Be?: A Soros-backed DA blames Republican gun manufacturers for the Old Dominion tragedy.

The second attack yesterday was on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, carried out by one Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, and like Mohamed Jolloh, a naturalized U.S. citizen. Temple Israel was holding classes for children, and mercifully, there were no casualties. Questions abound here, too, particularly concerning the promiscuous granting of U.S. citizenship. As for the attacks, Bill Glahn of Powerline makes a point too obvious for some of our chic left pals:

I do want to make one point about alleged motive. We all know what the motive was.

Missing Persons Bureau. Iran’s Supreme Leader Jr. has at last been heard from but President Trump says he believes Iran’s new leader has been wounded. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal urges President Trump not to end the war prematurely. Douglas Murray makes a similar plea in the New York Post:

Some people in Washington want hostilities to cease immediately. Others want them to stop before the operation is complete.

Of course nobody wants this war to go on a day longer than necessary. But this job can’t be left half-finished.

After all, a future US president might not have the resolve to stop the Mullah’s and their ambitions. Some day we’ll get another Jimmy Carter or Joe Biden.

Trump rightly started this historic mission. And he’s the only person who will also be able to finish it. But on America’s terms.

The Strait of Hormuz, where a significant portion of the world’s global energy supply is chocked up, has had the undivided attention of the entire world. But Kimberley Strassel suggests this morning in her Wall Street Journal column that the Trump administration prepared the world for just this crisis (“Trump’s Energy Triumph”):

Let’s talk about plans. That the U.S. was finally in a position to disarm Iran is largely thanks to a plan Mr. Trump initiated in his first term—to gain energy independence, which his team is now turning into energy dominance. Trump policies turbocharged a shale revolution that made the U.S. a net exporter of petroleum products and the world’s largest exporter of natural gas. Alongside was Mr. Trump’s plan to foster economic and security ties in the region against shared threats like Iran via deals like the Abraham Accords.

We are no longer hostage to Middle East fossil-fuel threats, which gives us room to weather temporary Hormuz disruptions. Domestic gasoline prices have spiked but are still notably below their highs during Joe Biden’s term. Thanks to growing U.S. exports, our allies are better positioned against fallout. And Gulf actors are working alongside the U.S. to mitigate Iran’s blockade. Some of us remember “OPEC embargo” days. No more.

Four members of the U.S. military were killed in a refueling accident involving a plane in Iraq. Prominent Democrat David Boies contributes an op-ed entitled “Partisanship on Iran Is Dangerous for America” to the Wall Street Journal:

If we believe that Iran presents a serious threat, we need to support the president on this issue. There’s plenty to disagree with him about, and we don’t need to like or admire him. But on Iran we should be on common ground. Not primarily because we want to reduce partisanship in foreign affairs—although that is conceivable.

Not because the voters will reward us for a more measured response—although I hope they will. But because it is the right thing to do for our country, our children and the Democrat who will succeed Mr. Trump as president.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune says he simply doesn’t have the numbers to pass the SAVE America Act. “If Congress doesn’t pass the SAVE America Act, vote them out,” urges USA TODAY’s Nicolle Russell: 

It’s so simple, I can’t believe it’s not the law already. It would require “in person” documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. Concerns that it would make voting difficult for married women or other groups of people, because documentation is hard to acquire, are overblown.

Voter ID standards aren’t even controversial in other countries.

Just Can’t Stop Mutilating Children: New York AG Letitia James has ordered New York hospitals to continue performing “gender-affirming” procedures on minors. An editorial in the New York Post challenges James’ stand as “just another ideological con job:”

In her latest bit of grandstanding, state Attorney General Letitia James ordered NYU Langone hospital to resume “gender-affirming care” for minors by March 11 — or else . . . what?

NYU Langone Health quite rightly called her bluff — right as a matter of law, and of basic decency….

James joined 19 other states in suing the Department of Health and Human Services, claiming that the feds overreached their authority — but the Social Security Act orders HHS to set standards of care for facilities participating in Medicare or Medicaid, which provide nearly half of all US hospital revenue.

The AG claims Langone must obey a New York state law that requires hospitals “to offer care without discrimination based on gender identity or expression.”

Call Vogue to do a spread. Did you know that the First Lady of New York is an artist?

The Washington Free Beacon has the scoop: “Zohran Mamdani’s Wife Provided Illustrations for Essay Whose Author Called Oct. 7 ‘Spectacular’ and Attacked ‘Jewish Supremacist Vampires’.” You’ll get to see some of First Lady Rama Duwaji’s drawings courtesy of the Free Beacon.

We Found a Christian! We Found a Christian! The Wall Street Journal’s excellent Barton Swaim examines Texas Senate hopeful “James Talarico’s Cost-Free Creed.” Swaim suggests, “Left-wing orthodoxy with a Christian gloss isn’t what religious voters are looking for.”

“British Culture Under Attack—by Its Curators” is the City Journal headline over a very discouraging story:

Bureaucrats and academics agree that rural areas must become effectively less English. DEFRA’s plans include outreach schemes to attract more Muslims to the countryside, recruiting more “diverse” staff, and producing marketing materials featuring ethnic minorities and written in “community languages.” British academics released a study on “rural racism,” suggesting that the countryside should offer more halal food and spaces for prayer (though presumably not in village churches).

Don’t count on that last bit about village churches.

I can’t pretend I’ve ever risen above gossip. So, the sec I finish this morning, I plan to read Politico’s story on how Washington hostess and consultant Juleanna Glover courted Jeffrey Epstein.

As a loyal daughter of a certain state, I am delighted to close with City Journal’s “The State that Says Yes,” the story of how a certain poor state—Mississippi—is becoming a model for American growth. I had to do it.

No date? No worries; why friends are the real Valentine’s lifesaver

Posted on by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor for IW Features, The Federalist and the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network. Her articles have also appeared in National Review, Fox News Digital, The Daily Signal and Townhall. Originally appeared on Fox News.

My friend recently told me that her favorite Valentine’s Day was a few decades ago in second grade, when her playground crush called to say he loved her. 

“It’s been all downhill from there,” she joked.

Another friend said her most cherished memory was when her fifth-grade love interest bought her a bracelet. “And nothing positive since,” she told us, in jest, during the same conversation.

While Valentine’s Day can be a meaningful reminder to celebrate a cherished romantic relationship — even after elementary school — it can also be fraught with dread, obligation and the letdown of unrealistic expectations.

A male friend once told me he refuses to celebrate Valentine’s Day because he resents being told by a calendar when to be thoughtful. Instead, he programs his phone to remind him to buy his wife flowers every 45 days. He admits the irony without hesitation but insists it’s different because his wife doesn’t know about the alerts and is genuinely surprised every time.

He might be onto something. If his wife is genuinely surprised — and actually enjoys flowers — research suggests the unexpected treat triggers a stronger dopamine response. Husbands and boyfriends, however, are often stuck navigating the delicate balance between the joy of surprise and the risk of disappointment when flowers or gifts are expected and fail to appear.

On the other hand, people not in romantic relationships might dread the heart and candy day, when grocery store aisles are overrun with pink and red chaos because it’s a not-so-subtle reminder of their singleness — and, for some, a pang of loneliness.

But there’s hope. Celebrating Valentine’s Day — or any festive occasion — with good friends can boost your well-being and even increase your longevity. In an article last month, oncologist and former Obama White House Special Advisor for Health Policy Ezekiel Emanuel argued that the key to living longer is close friendships. Citing the Health and Retirement Study, he noted that people with the most close friends — an average of 7.8 — had a 17% lower risk of depression and a 24% lower risk of death than those with fewer close friends, who averaged just 1.6.

When I was in high school, my father told me I’d be lucky to have five real friends over the course of my lifetime. I thought he was completely out of his mind and assured him I had dozens. Now it turns out he wasn’t pessimistic. He was practically doing longevity math. Five may be fewer than 7.8, but it’s close enough to feel medically reassuring.

One of my favorite memories is celebrating Valentine’s Day with close college friends a few years before I married. We went to dinner, where we very publicly unwrapped unexpected — and absolutely humiliating — gifts from my friend, who would later become my maid of honor. Then we danced like fools until the club kicked us out. By the time we returned home, my sides hurt from laughing so hard I thought I might cry. I’d like to think we can bank that kind of happiness and draw on it during life’s duller phases.

I can’t imagine my husband, father or brother ditching their, ahem, better halves to grab dinner and go dancing with their buddies on Valentine’s Day. Still, the freezing, midwinter Hallmark holiday offers a perfect excuse to pick up the phone and tell friends how much they matter.

Maybe that’s the real gift Valentine’s Day has to offer — not roses on demand or perfectly timed romance, but a reminder to notice the people who show up again and again, the friends who make us laugh until our sides hurt, who know our embarrassing stories and who stick around long after the candy is gone. 

Romantic love can come with pressure and high expectations, but friendship — including the kind we share with our spouses — has a way of surprising us quietly, reliably and over a lifetime.

Read on Fox News

‘Trans’ Gaslighting; No, Canada Shooter Was Not ‘Female in a Dress.’ Guthrie Glove. REAL Epstein Files. Seeking a Rich Sugar Daddy—Your Friends at WaPo. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

The initial description was fishy. Early reports identified the shooter in the terrible mass shooting in Canada as “a female in a dress.” But was this accurate?   

Powerline seems to have been the first to question this curious description. The post was headlined “Another Trans Mass Shooting?” Remove that question mark.

Here is how the New York Times describes the shooter, who has been identified as Jesse Van Rootselaar:

Ms. Van Rootselaar was biologically born male and began transitioning to female six years ago, Mr. McDonald said. He added that the police would continue identifying her as a female. He said that the authorities were not yet able to say why the suspect had carried out the murder spree, one of the worst in Canadian history.

Here’s a picture of Van Rootselaar. Look like a female to you? The more reliable New York Post calls him “transgender” in the headline and describes his sick massacre:

The transgender high school dropout who gunned down his mother and stepbrother before killing six others at a British Columbia, Canada school was seen for the first time in resurfaced photos posted by his family – including one eerie snap showing the smiling teen holding a rifle. 

Jesse Van Rootselaar, the 18-year-old ex-student who went on a gun-wielding rampage at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, was spotted straight-faced in several pictures posted by his grandmother on Facebook for his 14th birthday.

“Happy 14th birthday to our grandson Jesse !! Love you always !! XOXO,” the post from August 2021 read.

Van Rootselaar launched the horrifying attack at a private residence in the remote community before continuing the carnage at the high school, where authorities said he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In the same honest media outlet, Bethany Mandel calls upon the mainstream press to “stop gaslighting” us about “the reality of trans shooters.” Mandel writes:

The tragedy in British Columbia is not an isolated incident. 

Over the past several years, a disturbing number of mass attacks have involved individuals who identified as transgender.

In Nashville, a transgender-identified shooter murdered six people at a Christian school.

In Minneapolis, another attacker with documented gender-identity turmoil targeted a church.

The alleged murderer of Charlie Kirk had transgender associations and beliefs.

Yet the media insist that violence by mentally ill people and their transgender identity is mere coincidence.

The Federalist comments on “an epidemic of transgender violence” and has this about the Canadian shooter’s mother:

An Instagram account purportedly belonging to Jesse’s mother, Jennifer, appears to show she was a trans activist who posted that “you have any idea how many kids are killing themselves over this kind of hate,” adding “ProtectTransKids.”

When it comes to the “trans” issue, it’s not only the public at large that suffers from gaslighting. “What I Suffered Being ‘Transgender’” is an eloquent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Soren Aldaco, an Independent Women Ambassador, who is suing the medical professionals who gaslight her, encouraging her to undergo radical surgery to “transition” into a male.

There is a belated break in the Nancy Guthrie case. Investigators have found a black glove dropped near Mrs. Guthrie’s yard, potentially a breakthrough. A retired FBI agent believes the suspect is an amateur—in which case, he or she has had a pretty good run so far.

“A Welcome Jobs Rebound” is a headline on a Wall Street Journal editorial on the Labor Department’s January jobs report.

The economy created a net 130,000 new jobs in the first month of the year, according to the Labor Department. But the story is better than that because the private economy created 172,000, offset by a decline of 42,000 jobs in government.

The Biden years were a boom time for government, and the Trump course correction is much needed. …

A major complication in this data is the impact of the Administration’s mass deportation policy. The National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) looked at the BLS data and found a decline of 534,000 foreign-born workers in the U.S. since a peak in March 2025. That’s a reduction of about 1.4 million foreign-born workers than would be expected from previous government estimates. ….

NFAP says the unemployment rate for U.S.-born workers was 4.7% in January, compared to 4.3% in January 2025. The jobs that foreign workers filled may simply go away over time, as the deportation wave continues. But at least in January the labor market showed signs of a welcome rebound.

Meanwhile, the number of voluntary self-deportations skyrockets as (some) illegal immigrants find that the Trump administration means business.   

I’m Napoleon. And I Voted. The Free Beacon has a truly smashing piece on the Mamdani official, whose previous pursuits included registering psychotic people to vote. Alister Martin, New York’s new Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Chief, helped provide help for doctors to register mental patients to vote:

Citing the “therapeutic” benefits of voting, the institute has used Vot-ER’s tools since at least 2021 to register patients hospitalized for schizophrenia, suicidal thoughts, and life-threatening addictions. Some of those patients had been involuntarily committed, raising thorny questions about informed consent and the use of vulnerable people as political pawns.

History Calling. President Trump’s intentions in Iran remain a mystery. “Serious Trump biographies in the decades ahead will begin with the decision he makes on Iran now,” Hugh Hewitt argues.

One door is marked “Truman/Reagan” and the other door is marked “Carter/Obama/Biden.”

President Donald Trump has to choose one. Again. And this time, the choice will define Trump’s place in history.

A New York Post editorial suggests “Iran’s rulers plainly fear US strikes — Trump should prove them right.” Former CIA analyst Martin Gurri writes that from Venezuela to Tehran, Trump keeps the world guessing—to his advantage.

In “The Real Epstein ‘Ring’” Barton Swaim debunks the usual take on the late pedo:

The Jeffrey Epstein files were supposed to uncover the financier’s sex-trafficking and blackmail operation. They haven’t, for the excellent reason that there was no such operation. …

Its nonexistence is, ironically, the main thing to emerge so far from the document dump. … The press purports to think the salient fact here is that Mr. Trump in 2019 claimed he knew nothing about Epstein’s creepy actions. But the salient point is that Mr. Trump in 2006 volunteered his view to the cops that Epstein’s behavior revolted him and is thus unlikely to have participated in it.

Today’s liberals spend a lot of energy discoursing on the American right’s pathologies, often justly. But it ought to bother them that 20 years ago the man they loathe most took a look at Jeffrey Epstein’s conduct and got the hell out of there.

Washington’s Neediest Cases. “Rich Liberals, Please Step Up and Save the Washington Post” is the headline on Michael Tomasky’s plea at The New Republic. Behind the paywall, but you get the gist. Laughter Is the Best Medicine. Townhall’s Kurt Schlichter has a different idea: indulge in some good old schadenfreude. He writes:

There’s a glorious symmetry in their suffering, but there’s so much more. There’s their incessant whining about Jeff Bezos refusing to continue to subsidize their little bubble, like some bratty girl at Wellesley who graduates and finds that Daddy is cutting off her money and she’s got to actually work. Did these people actually work? They told themselves consistently how important and vital their “work” was ….

Personally, I love their incessant whining that Jeff Bezos somehow owes them sinecures. Why, he’s got so much money he could easily continue paying for them to provide zero value! It’s his moral duty! One even referred to his “stewardship” of the Washington Post in a typically overwrought X post. Stewardship? He’s a steward? What, like some sort of ink-stained Denethor? Well, they’ve got the funeral pyre part down.

What Does This Mean? Gallup will no longer chart presidential approval ratings. Gallup has been tracking them for 90 years. … Nina Shea asks what is next for Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong newspaper owner, behind bars at the behest of the communist regime in Beijing. Shea provides a glimpse of Lai’s life in prison through his daughter.

Things Fall Apart: Gender Medicine. Washington Post. No Breaks in Nancy Guthrie Case. Call Out for Vaught. Marsha Blackburn Questions Objectivity of Legal Giant. More

Posted on by Charlotte Hays

Will listing your pronouns soon be passé?

“The Rise and Fall of Youth Gender Medicine” is the lead headline at The Free Press early this morning.  This is the tease on Emily Yoffe’s timely report:

When The Free Press started reporting on gender ideology, it was a third rail. Today, the tide has turned.

An American Greatness piece also heralds the collapse of the transgender industrial complex. If the tide is turning, give a hearty round of applause to Fox Varian, 22, who was recently awarded $2 million by a jury, whetting the appetite of trial lawyers everywhere. Varian was unhappy about a disfiguring double mastectomy performed on her as a teenager.

London Telegraph columnist Michael Deacon (“I don’t believe the ‘experts’ who say trans athletes have no advantage over women”) gives a commonsense debunking of a new study from Brazil purporting that men have no advantage over women in sports. Deacon—who has a witty take on pronoun tyranny—noted: 

The governing bodies of various sports started to concede that, on the whole, it would probably be fairer to let women – as in, the old-fashioned, female kind – have competitions of their own again. A woman’s rights, and indeed physical safety, were held to be more important than a man’s feelings. At last, sanity had been restored to its throne.

Let’s hope the Brazilian study is merely a rearguard action. Claire Abernathy, another brave and regretful recipient of “gender-affirming treatment”—mutilation—reminds us that, though guidelines may change, she will always live with the results of her treatment:

I cannot sing like I used to. I loved choir and theater. They were special to me, but now, because no one told me that my vocal chords would expand due to testosterone, I cannot perform as well as I previously could. I will not be able to breastfeed any future children. I still don’t know if I’m fertile or able to conceive. There are countless examples I could give, but what I want to emphasize is that while the standards are moving in the right direction, they can’t turn back time. I’ll never be able to get back the body that I once had.

What’s most painful to sit with is not just what was taken from me, but how confidently it was taken.

Meanwhile, boxer Imane Khelif, who previously competed in women’s boxing at the Olympics, has admitted that he is a man. Bear in mind that the Left will not be eager to see the collapse of the trans movement.

The Rise and Fall of the Washington Post. Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan issues “A Lament for the Washington Post,” which announced this week massive layoffs, in her latest Wall Street Journal column. Alas, not everyone was grief-stricken. “These Top 10 Heartbreaking Posts About the WaPo Layoffs Will (Almost) Make You Forget the Paper Lost $100 Million per Year” at the Free Beacon is hilarious. The subhead: “Democracy Is Dead.”  Daily Caller’s Geoffrey Ingersoll acknowledges that being laid off “sucks,” but asks:

Did WaPo really need to pay 13 salaries in the “climate change” beat? Was the output of WaPo’s various “race reporters” really putting the business in the, ahem, black? Why on earth is their sports section, which was almost entirely nuked, leading Super Bowl week with a giant cover story on Excel spreadsheets? …

The third notable freakout was when the new executive editor, Will Lewis, was brought aboard from the Telegraph. Staff revolted. They demanded to know if any black women were considered. (I hear Claudine Gay is looking for C-level employment.)

Apparently, “race-based journalists” have been laid off not only at the Washington Post but at other outlets.

Maybe the Washington Post should have hired Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought to help them cut costs. Vaught got a nice call out from Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel this morning. “For the first time in eons, Republicans are getting serious about spending control,” writes Strassel, and Vaught is key. Meanwhile, a man in Maryland has been arrested for the alleged attempted assassination of the OMB Director.

President Trump has called to “nationalize” presidential elections, though an editorial in the Wall Street Journal notes that it’s not crystal clear what he means. The editors are critical of the idea:

Mr. Thune remains “not in favor of federalizing elections,” he told the press. “I’m a big believer in decentralized, distributed power. And I think, you know, it’s harder to hack 50 election systems than it is to hack one.” The resiliency point is a good one, and voting equipment in a given state can vary even by county, so an adversary wanting to disrupt a U.S. election faces a hard challenge.

Mr. Thune also has company. “I do not want to see us nationalizing elections,” Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson said, though he added that he believes it’s “fitting and proper to set some basic standards for federal elections,” such as voter ID, which Mr. Johnson called “unbelievably popular.” Nationalize elections? “That’s not what the Constitution says,” Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul told MS NOW. “I was against Nancy Pelosi’s bill.” …

MAGA mouthpiece Steve Bannon suggested that Mr. Trump “have ICE surround the polls,” and “call up the 82nd and 101st Airborne.” Yeah, after Mr. Trump’s political debacle in Minneapolis, independent voters would love that.

A Time for Choosing. Even for yoga teachers:

Enraged spandex-clad customers at a Minneapolis CorePower Yoga studio berated staffers for being “complicit” in the federal immigration crackdown during a caught-on-camera clash last weekend — demanding that they immediately condemn ICE.

Video of the clash posted to social media by Heather Anderson, who claims to have been a regular at the location for nearly a decade, shows at least 13 women “spontaneously” facing off against two female staffers inside of the studio’s lobby after a Sunday class let out.

I don’t know if he had to sneak incognito into any yoga classes, but J. Michael Waller infiltrated radical groups 40 years ago, and he’s alarmed about something he sees in today’s counterparts: a thirst for martyrs. The Federalist regards the anti-ICE checkpoints in Minneapolis as evidence that anarchists are an occupying force.

Yet another moral collapse: The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson looks at Spain’s impending mass amnesty for migrants who will never assimilate and sees the future: “Mass Amnesty In Spain Heralds the End of Nationhood.”

“Reality Is Finally Crashing New York’s Utopian Green-energy Party” is the headline on a Bjorn Lomborg story. But is New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani reality-based? Take his idea for free buses, which could ruin one of the nation’s best transportation systems.

Distressing. “No suspects and a new reward: Family pleads for Nancy Guthrie’s return as search enters sixth day,” CNN reports. There are chilling indications that Mrs. Guthrie may have been targeted.

Senator Marsha Blackburn is urging Chief Justice John Roberts to launch an investigation into Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson over her attendance at the Grammy Awards on Sunday amid anti-ICE rhetoric from celebrities and artists at the event. The Senator is concerned that attendance at such an event impugns the legal giant’s objectivity.

The Kennedy Center Without Tears. DC Examiner columnist Henry Olsen has a novel approach to the Kennedy Center. “Mr. Trump, tear down the Kennedy Center,” is his Reaganesque plea:

The Kennedy Center was built in the 1960s and is a testimony to the drab, uninspired architecture of that age. It commands a fantastic site, facing the Potomac River on a bluff visible from the air and from land as visitors enter the city. It should be the type of building that commands awe and attention from all who see it.

Instead, it is a flat, drab rectangle with unadorned columns and an off-white marble exterior. Nothing about it screams American greatness — nothing draws the viewer’s gaze as they fly or drive by. The circular Watergate building across the street has more visual interest than the country’s leading theater. … The interior is, if anything, even more depressing.

Mr. Olsen helpfully supplies the president with ideas gleaned from beautiful public buildings around the world. And what shall we call this triumph of architecture?